


Fallen Cherub

by Awsumatid



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: American spellings because microsoft word hates me, Angels, Cherubim, Cows, Eagles, Fallen Angel, Garden of Eden, Heartache, Humans, I kinda hate my writing after i post it even though I like it otherwise so, If you are wary of blasphemy do not read this, Lions, M/M, Mentions of God with a capital G in a less-than-positive light, Mike is kind of a jerk because he doesn't understand cherubim, Mysterious, Mythology - Freeform, POV First Person, POV John Watson, Plot, Poetry, Sailor John, The cherubs with 4 heads and 4 wings, Vague, angel - Freeform, cherub, not the putto things, real conflict, tonnes of plot, unedited
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2017-11-09
Packaged: 2019-01-05 23:58:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12199869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Awsumatid/pseuds/Awsumatid
Summary: In Which John and Sherlock are cherubim who fall from a Dante-style heaven. When John follows Sherlock blindly they realise only too late that the should have gone side-by-side as they land in different places.  Will John ever find Sherlock? How will they adapt to their new human emotions as well as the loss of everything they once knew? What is love?





	1. Is this Heaven or Purgatory

**Author's Note:**

> I have two main goals for the end of this. To Entertain myself as well as the reader and as part of that implement an interesting and suspenseful plot, and to show my interpretation of love as an evolving thing by having them experience more than sexual, romantic or aesthetic attraction to one another, and showing that it is okay not to want or need someone at any given time because all love is different and can change between two persons in healthy ways. In short I want to show that love is more than cuddles and poems and "I love you"s which I hope I can explain to you eloquently throughout the story. Please enjoy, take things with a grain of salt, and tell me ways I can improve.

In the beginning we had no form. We were assigned to guard the first humans, the first plants, the beginning of the end. We fell in love over time, we knew we could not love these children fresh from the womb, they were too young, and far too fragile. Who would bank something as precious as love on something so new, so eager to die? Besides it was not our place to love.

Oh but love we did, one in fascination and one in kinsmanship. I saw myself in them while he saw something uniquely different. I’m not sure what happened. I think I saw her reaching outwards and thought that it may be nice for her to know as much as I. I think he saw her as an opportunity to know more. We were not supposed to know greed, and as they put on cloaks of shame we grew the wings of an eagle, the body of a lion, and the head of a king. I saw too much but he saw too little.

We were talking one day, and I wish I could say chatting but we were not allowed to be as frivolous as that. We decided that love must not be an emotion, for we cannot feel emotions, and yet I know I knew love.

Fears are things, as tangible as you or I, and they came to fruition when, upon the end of Eden we could no longer watch over those eager children. Boredom is a state of existence. No one could ever be more bored than he was, until the day when he proposed something truly outlandish. 

So each day we would fly together, hand in hand, away from the glowing rings of our existence and to the furthest place, where we could only stay for a few meager hours at a time before making the long trip back, but we saw the humans as they grew so unsteadily. 

We knew not to pick favourites, for they all died so quickly and it was better to love all of the humans as one being. Soon, we were bored again.

Years and years passed, it had been so long since anyone cared about our existence that people painted us as chubby babies. I could feel the cold as he shivered beside me, my only friend, the bearer of my secrets.

“Please tell me your fears, so we may face them together as we do all things.”

“It’s nothing so palpable as to cause you harm. I will tell you some other time.”

“Time means nothing to me and even less to you.” I wrapped my wing around his shoulders, trying in vain to stop his quaking. “In a world where nothing seems real, your thoughts are one of the only things I have. And it may be that I don’t feel tortured by my bleak existence but… well it’s only, I would like to feel that way, I think.”

“I have no way of knowing if you would like to feel that way, and that is part of the problem. I fear we are too different from our humans and his angels. I fear our differences make us unwanted by those who know what it is to want. I fear that we may horrify today’s children. I fear there are far too many things unknowable.”

“I fear I may not be able to ease those fears but I will try.”

He nodded and we huddled close together so we could pretend to sleep. These were the times my imagination would roam as wild as it was able, though when we descend to look at those humans I can tell that my imagination was not so adventurous as it seemed. Something from my memory combined with something entirely new as I nurtured an idea. “Sherlock. I have a thought.”

“Hm?”

“Ideas must be things too. I believe it.”

“They certainly have the power to touch and be touched.”

“I have an Idea I would like to discuss with you.”

“I’m all ears.”

“I thought you were all eyes.”

“Is that a joke? Now I’m really interested.”

I smiled against his scalp. “Remember when she ate the fruit and lost holy status?”

“…Like when Lucifer fell from heaven.”

“My point being, what if we could fall too?”

“…It’s a good idea in theory but… there are a lot of problems. How would we be sure to fall in the right place?”

“That’s why I am including you in this line of thought.”

“Right.” As his talons bit into my flesh I knew he approved of my idea. He flew off to work out the problems and I pretended to go back to sleep. I briefly thought that perhaps God may be a tyrant king. I knew I’d soon be abandoned by god, for better or worse. 

Days later he came back to me. Even in my fake-sleep I could see him approaching, for my eagle eyes were always watchful, and I slowly opened my other eyes and stretched some of my jaws. I righted myself and floated closer to him. He opened his mouth as if to ask if I was ready but with my four heads and his several lifetimes of experience with looking at them, he could tell I was as ready as I’d ever be.

I studied his faces, the bull licked his nose in a gesture belying his intelligence, the eagle looked reverently at the surroundings he would no longer be able to experience, the lion licked his teeth in preparation and his human face was smiling yet slightly green. The eyes on his wings were dancing about and I was suddenly worried about all we would lose. These wings and heads were a part of us which we weren’t eager to lose, but of course I realized it was a necessity.

 I had unspeakable fear boiling through my veins, but I followed him to the highest point and we bounced off like simple moths from an electric light, and we smiled at each other as we fell. We weren’t looking for a clear point to advance like a simple moth, we weren’t attracted to the glow, but the effect was all the same.

I turned over and stretched my hand out towards him, weary of the landing, but too late we realized we were too far apart, and as we fell tears streamed up towards the sky and I felt the fear between us, wondering if I would ever find him again.

Then I was in the water. It was so cold that my wings could not stretch and my eyes shut tight, and my fur could not help me keep warm. So naturally as you please my fur got thinner and my eyes stopped sticking and my wings stopped trying and my heads washed down the river screaming along with all these things that were such a big part of me, and all I was left with was my kingly head and my bronze hooves.

I swam to the surface as I had watched the humans do and surveyed my surroundings. I had not expected the difficulty of looking with only two eyes but before the problem could become too serious a ship horn blared and a pink ring tube was tossed in my direction. I clung to it and after some inscrutable time I was lifted onto the rough surface of a steamboat. The sky was beautiful from this perspective, and I wondered if I was experiencing human emotion. Before I could go thoroughly in depth I passed out.

Finally I could experience what it was like to dream. I dreamt of where Sherlock was and where I might find him. I awoke in a large hospital being administered treatment for shock.

I was winded, a whirlwind of conflicting emotions all centered around Sherlock, it was incredible, it was exciting, it was frightening. For the first time in my pitiable existence I experienced real longing, wanting, I had purpose.

Often I would turn to the side of my shoulder, expecting to see Sherlock curled up in my wing, so I could ask him what to do or how to do it, and every time I felt a pang of self loathing, I felt his crushing absence, I felt my heart struggling even as there were less places it needed to supply blood to. 

A human female nurse sat near my door, occasionally marking with a pencil and avoiding looking me in the eye. I frowned and tried to think of what to say.

“איפה אני?”

She looked very surprised and spouted some words I couldn’t understand in an inquisitive tone. I looked at her confused which prompted her to repeat a phrase.

“Your name?”

“Neym?”

She shook her head and rushed out of the room, the door not quite closing behind her. The hallway was dark outside the dimly lit room and I wondered how long I’d been there. I got up and stuck my head past the door to see what she was doing and a doctor at the end of the hall nearly dropped his hat in astonishment. I closed the door and hopped back onto the cotton slab, but no sooner had I pulled the covers over my body when he entered the room and shut the door.

He spoke broken rushed Hebrew in a clandestine voice and stepped forwards. I tried to recall the human languages Sherlock and I learned all those centuries ago as he continued speaking. I managed to figure out that he was attempting to ask me if I could speak the English language. I nodded and after some consideration told him that “Yes indeed, I do speak English.”

He smiled and started speaking in english briefly before I had to ask him to repeat himself as I was not yet prepared to start processing the language.

“You don’t seem like any other fallen angel”

I looked at him for a long time before responding “Neither do you”.

He chuckled. “Not a very social fellow are we?”

“Cherubim do not experience human emotions, nor are we able to get out much.”

He blanched. “You’re a… cherub?”

“I don’t… Not anymore, I don’t think.”

“Yeah. Guess not. So wow, really? How’d you get here?”

I tried to hide the smile on my face as I said “I’d rather not discuss it.”

“Oh. Right, yeah. Were you- were you the only one? To fall?”

“I came up with the idea. My companion fleshed out the details. We fell at the same time but.” I looked down and grew silent.

“you do-“

“He fell in a different place. I don’t know where to find him.”

“Oh I’m so s-“

“Have you seen him? He’s got a sharp gaze, curly dark hair, cow licks on his mane and yet his bovine face looks quite intelligent, his wingspan is-“

“He probably doesn’t have those things anymore. What’s his name?”

“Sherlock. His name’s Sherlock. Which face do you think he still has?”

“The human one, naturally.”

I sank lower in my bed and sighed. “I suppose I’m grateful, but I know he will miss his eagle eyes so greatly…”

He stared at me like I had grown two necks and continued. “I havent seen any recent fallen angels.”

“Sherlock was _not_ an angel. He was a Cherub.I stared at him exasperated. “My name is Mike Stamford. What is your name?”

He shuffled papers on his clipboard.

“My name is John.”

He nodded and wrote on the top paper.

“You’ll need a last name… Watson’ll do.”

“What?”

“Your parents are deceased and you are a bachelor. Remember that.”

He continued to flourish his pen and showed me a finished paper documenting my ‘birth’, and began telling me things I needed to do on earth. Days later, John Watson was discharged from the hospital and went in search of a job.

I knew as an “adult” I was expected to uphold a steady job, but I also wanted to be able to find Sherlock. Thinking it over I reasoned that most of the earth’s surface was covered in water, therefore I could cover the most area in a job that allowed to to travel the sea.

When I joined the navy I was not expecting to do as many repetitive tasks as were required. When I scaled the ropes and walked thin boards as easily as if I were flying, I was not very impressed. Still it was something to do to stave off the loneliness and boredom.

As the ship rocked from side to side and we were tossed about in our meager quarters I began to empathize. I saw that O’Conner and Doran and Madden had hearts as sick and sad as I. They worried over families they thought they’d never see again, fights unresolved, lovers unloved, lives that they weren’t able to live and before I knew it I’d begun to sing.

It was a confident song, a tune so sure mixed with feelings so sad it tasted bittersweet on my tongue. They all ate it up though, and by the time my hands had calloused over from gripping the ropes my songs had switched to much happier thoughts and most times I sang at least five other people would likely join in.

When I sat atop the ship feeling the wind in my hair staring out at the ocean fear gripped me like an old friend trying to catch up, and though I say it was the wind stinging my eyes I cant help picturing the tears streaming past his face as he fell out of my grasp whenever such things occur.


	2. A poem- Seasick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A dialogue poem with John and Sherlock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wrote this poem for practice and i wanted to post it to tide y'all over till the next chapter is ready. John is on the left side and Sherlock is on the right side.

Floating

Is a lot like falling

And nothing seems real

You’re so far and

I’ve lost my anchor

So now I’m

Floating

Falling towards the ground

Tripping

Tipping over

Overboard

I’ve not seen you in years

Years, can you believe it?

Where have you gone?

Sometimes I wonder if it was all

A delusion. I’m so

Alone, im so alone, surrounded by people but

Alone. Am I crazy?

I’m losing my mind. All this search is making me

Homesick

Seasick

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me how I messed up in the comments, or just things you want to share, such as fun facts or life events, or things you want to see going forward.  
> Edit: I keep fucking up while posting this sorry.


End file.
